Adjusting Artillery

[grenadier98]

ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

Whatever numbers you come up with, I think there has to be a balance between Entente (UK/Fr) and Central Power (Ge) artillery on the Western Front. At Verdun the Germans had more guns deployed, at the Somme the British and French did, but in neither case was that superiority decisive. There needs to be a greater chance in the game for the Western Front to become stalemated, like in the real war, so that the decisive events between 1915 and 1917 happen elsewhere e.g. accelerating collapse of fighting ability of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Ottoman Turkey.

Naturally the side which prepared and conducted an offensive concentrated their artillery in that given sector. I was talking about the overall amount off heavy artillery and these numbers are pretty clear. I think this is not refelceted by the current build limits. But I've to admit that I have no idea how many heavy guns these three nations had on the other fronts.
I agree, it's difficult to don't mess the gamebalance be changing the build limits. That's why I am afraid off and haven't done yet.

[grenadier98]

ORIGINAL: stockwellpete


Yes, I think these are very good changes and should be implemented in the game. What I am trying in my new mod is increasing the Defence value of Infantry Corps from 3 to 4 and removing their ability to De-entrench each attack. Instead these attacks cause a modest amount of Demoralisation. So now only Artillery can De-entrench. Not sure at all yet whether this will solve the problem of trenches being destroyed in the later game, but there must be a point where I will het the sweet spot.

I think the deentrenching ability of infantry reflects their ability to storm and break in the enemy trenches during an attack. Removing this ability might have a big influence.
I'm not an expert in WW1 knowledge. As far as I know there were many attempts to come up with something new to break the stalemate. Poison gas, tanks, the undermining of trenches and so on, but the front almost didn't move at all. Wasn't it the use of Stormtrooper Tactics during the German offensive in 1918 which got the front moving again? These offensives were partially succesful on a tactical level, but on the strategical level the German Army couldn't cope with the losses anymore compared with the additional US troops for the Entente. So ironically it would have been smarter not to break the stalemate at all. But whatever it was, for the first time since the of fall/autumn (as a non native english speaker I always forget which one is AE and BE and which one should be used on forums[;)]) of 1914 the front was moving again. So in the end the infantry broke the stalemate.

Maybe the artillery shouldn't be able to deentrench at all or just to a limited amount. I tried this in a hot seat and the impact of firing eight to ten shells on a heavily entrenched (level 6) corps was still so signicant that it could still be destroyed with consective corps attacks with very little losses on the attackers side.
Another idea is to limit the amount of attacks a single artillery can do in one turn. Right now its limit is its stocked shells.

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: grenadier98

I think the deentrenching ability of infantry reflects their ability to storm and break in the enemy trenches during an attack. Removing this ability might have a big influence.

Yes, I agree. But there wasn't just one line of trenches, so even if they took the front line there would be at least two more lines of trenches to take. This is where we hit the problem of scale in the game. The size of the hexes represent about 30 square kilometres, I believe, and this size would cover the entire depth of the front line and some of the support networks as well. So for defending units to be completely de-entrenched, as happens very frequently in the game, is to say that the defenders have suffered an absolute military catastrophe. Maybe one way of representing this a bit better in the game would be to say that infantry attacks can only de-entrench a hex by 1 level in a turn (by that I mean attacks by 4 infantry units would still only reduce the trench level by one)? And that any other de-entrenchment has to be done by artillery.

Maybe the artillery shouldn't be able to deentrench at all or just to a limited amount. I tried this in a hot seat and the impact of firing eight to ten shells on a heavily entrenched (level 6) corps was still so signicant that it could still be destroyed with consective corps attacks with very little losses on the attackers side.
Another idea is to limit the amount of attacks a single artillery can do in one turn. Right now its limit is its stocked shells.

Yes, a limited amount of de-entrenchment would be good. Maybe an artillery barrage could only destroy half the trench levels (rounded down) in a hex, so that it would make no sense at all to keep on blasting the same hex. Or, also say that artillery cannot de-entrench and destroy strength points with the same shot, so once the de-entrenchment level for that hex had been reached the attacking player would be facing diminishing returns from subsequent artillery fire (because any subsequent de-entrench result would be disregarded and count as a "miss".).

There are a number of interesting ways of addressing this problem, but at the moment, even if you restrict the number of shells that artillery can have by linking that to Logistics Tech, it is still possible from 1915 onwards to line up 2 artillery units on the same target and blast it to oblivion.

[mdsmall]

After reading this thread, I have started thinking about how to experiment with some of the changes to artillery discussed here. But first, I need to know what are the actual combat effects of artillery at all three levels of Artillery Weapons (0, 1, 2) in the standard game.

I can see in the Editor the combat strength, de-entrenchment and demoralization effects at artillery at level 0. How much do these respective factors increase at level 1 and level 2 artillery weapons? Is there any way that you can modify the benefits of higher levels of research for artillery (or any of the other weapons techs)?

Also, where in the Editor does the increase in combat effectiveness from spotting by Recon Bombers come in? Is that modifiable too in the Editor?

[Bavre]

To look it up start a hotseat Ludendorff, there you will have the max tech in most stuff already in round 1.

Use the production screen to go through the different tech levels. Only thing that has slightly different stats there is the standard infantry afaik.

No idea how to change the values via editor, though.

[BillRunacre]

If you go to Campaign -> Edit Country Data -> Edit Research -> Advanced -> Upgrades -> Upgrade Increments

Then you can review and edit the benefits received by research.

The Recon Bombers' effect on improving artillery effectiveness is hard coded so cannot be edited.

[Narisomo]

There are a number of interesting ways of addressing this problem, but at the moment, even if you restrict the number of shells that artillery can have by linking that to Logistics Tech, it is still possible from 1915 onwards to line up 2 artillery units on the same target and blast it to oblivion.

Verdun should definitely not be as easy to take as it currently is, even with three artilleries.

Some idea:
There is a probability of de-entrechment that decreases with each shot. This reflects that the ground is already destroyed and that there are more craters and dust and smoke. Maybe in addition the number of shots should be limited to 3, which also solves the problem of having to watch the opponent firing the artillery for two minutes. (A battleship can only fire once, even if it does not move).

[shri]

There are a lot of things that do not happen in the game. Trying to force specific events is futile. No russian armies suicide into East prussia or french armies suicide into Alsace forts stuff happens.

So, making verdun stronger than it is unwanted. What the french should aim is to get level 1 artillery by the time it falls and keep trying to retake it. That will be the real VERDUN campaign.